


The Kiss: Five Years On

by bluflamingo



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: F/M, Future Fic, M/M, groupchat, queer players, the kiss
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-29
Updated: 2019-05-29
Packaged: 2020-03-27 12:45:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,048
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19013179
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluflamingo/pseuds/bluflamingo
Summary: Five years after The Kiss, a journalist wanting to write about how hockey's changed reaches out to players across the NHL.





	The Kiss: Five Years On

**Author's Note:**

> [Check out korechthonia's gorgeous artwork here](https://korechthonia.tumblr.com/post/185219193874/the-kiss-5-years-later-find-the-fic-on-ao3)

Marshall: Apparently a journo from THW wants to talk to me

Parse: and we care becos?

Marshall: She's writing a piece on how the NHL changed in the last five years

Chowder: Oh, that's so cool! 

Chowder: Isn't it usually 10 yrs tho?

Pins: @Chowder think they picked it 4 a reason

Chowder: ooooh

Parse: [eye-roll emoji]

Marshall: So that's a no on her contacting anyone else then?

Marshall: Zimmermann?

Zimmboni: No-one's talked to me. 

Parse: @Marshall feel special dude

*

Kent's still got his eyes on his phone when he wanders back into the bedroom. "Hey, Swoops, you in the groupchat right now?" There's no response – probably because, he discovers when he looks up, the bed is empty, the covers still thrown back to reveal rumpled sheets and Jeff's discarded boxers. "Swoops?"

"I heard you," Jeff calls – oh, from the bathroom, that was probably guessable. "And no, I'm in the shower."

Kent focuses on his actual surroundings for a moment, instead of his phone. The shower's running, audible through the half-open door into the en-suite, and the blinds are closed, as though anyone could see through Kent's twenty-first floor windows. It's one of Jeff's weird quirks – he only ever worries about people's non-existent ability to see in once they've finished having sex and one of them might be walking around naked.

"Hey." Jeff leans round the bathroom door, a towel draped around his still dry shoulders. "Everything okay?"

Kent holds his phone out silently, waits as Jeff reads the messages and his face scrunches up in response. "That's interesting," he says, which is no help whatsoever. He takes the phone and hands it back to Kent, the screen locked when Kent glances down. Kent tosses it onto the bed, where he won't be able to feel it vibrating with more messages in the queer players' chat.

"The Writers have been pretty okay about this stuff. It's probably Mary-Beth, even Zimmermann likes her." Jeff hooks a hand into Kent's elbow and sits them both down, lets Kent lean into him. It's not Kent's preferred way to be half-naked post-sex, but it still feels good to be skin against skin. He breathes in their joint scent and tries to figure out what he's feeling.

The queer players' chat isn't a new thing, or even a new thing since Zimms and Eric kissed – Jeff mentioned it in passing a little after he joined the Aces, Kent's third year in the NHL, offered to add Kent, even though back then they were just friends, and Kent hadn't really told anyone that he was gay. Knowing it existed was comforting, but it still took Kent another two years and a second Stanley Cup to ask Jeff if the offer was still open. Even after all this time – even after how things changed in the last five years – he's still not totally sure who some of the people in there actually are.

"You think she'll contact us?" he asks, instead of getting into whether it makes a difference or not if the journalist is Mary-Beth O'Hanahan, the only person who asked Zimms about hockey in that first press conference.

Jeff shrugs. "Probably. You, almost for sure."

Kent didn't really need him to say it, he knows. Ever since Zimms kissed his boyfriend – husband, now – Kent's been one of the top choices for interviews about queer people in hockey. It doesn't seem to matter that he's never actually come out. There were always rumors about the two of them, and everyone just treated it like Zimms saying he was bi confirmed them.

He sighs, leaning further into Jeff. "She'll probably go through the ambassadors, right?"

"You mean, through me?" Jeff puts his arm around Kent, snuggling in closer. "This is why you talked me into being the Aces' You Can Play guy?"

Kent presses a kiss to Jeff's chest. "Not the only reason." Like Kent, Jeff's never actually come out, though plenty of people assume, especially now since he took over as YCP ambassador for the team when Jax got traded to the Canucks. Jeff, though, makes it work for him in a way that Kent can't quite get his head around, talking constantly about how the freedom and safety to come out doesn't mean that everyone has to or wants to. He almost always gets asked, _Does that include you?_ and he, Scraps and Kent have spent more than one cross-country flight coming up with new ways to point out the idiocy of that question without actually using the word idiocy.

"Are you scared?" Jeff asks quietly. 

Kent shakes his head, completely certain of that answer. He hasn't publicly come out and isn't interested in doing so, but it's so much easier to breathe now that he knows it wouldn’t be a disaster if he had to. "I'm tired," he says after a minute's thought. "JT doesn't get asked about this every time, Sid doesn't. They're both single as far as anyone knows, but they don't seem like they're queer, so they get to say the same stuff every time about people being themselves and that's it. You know? I'm just tired of being asked."

Jeff hugs him quietly for a while, then says, "Yesterday, you were like a kid at Christmas cause BuzzFeed did _ten cute Parse/Swoops moments_ and a poll about whether we're together or not." Kent doesn't say anything – it's true. "Sometimes it's hard, right? And maybe this journalist is going to ask all the same questions and it'll be one more interview that you're getting tired of having, or maybe they'll have something new to say, or maybe nothing will come of it at all."

"So try not to worry about it?" Kent says. He knows he's prone to getting caught up in worst case scenarios – it's one of the things that sometimes bugs Swoops, but that Swoops is also great at dealing with. He takes a deep breath, reminds himself that this is one random person contacting one other player, and also, it's not like Kent can't say no if they do contact him.

"More like… I don't know, it could be so much worse? And most of the time, we get to make a lot of money playing hockey, and we don't have to worry about someone taking a picture of us holding hands on the way into the arena."

"And BuzzFeed did pick some of our cutest moments." Including a behind the scenes picture of the two of them at the last Aces' calendar photoshoot, in the cat café that Kent sponsors, the two of them leaning into each other on the floor, Kent holding a tiny ginger kitten up to Jeff's face for kisses. It's probably Kent's favourite picture of the two of them – they look like a real couple, happy and in love, and Jeff's right: even if it's tiring sometimes, or annoying, or frustrating, it's still worth it, just for moments like that in public, not having to hide.

*

Pins: Journo just got to me. How did i feel about being traded to the aeros?

Pins: Super-thrilled! Who wouldn't want to be the only queer guy on the last team to appoint a ycp rep?

Souse: i don't count now? offended!

Pins: I didn't know about you then! And no-one in the press knows about you now!

Souse: true (((

Swoops: what did u say

Pins: I'll think about it. That was 3 yrs ago, it's better now. I don't want to talk about how it was then.

Jax: need a hug?

Jax: (hug)

Pins: (hug) back. She get to you yet?

Jax: not so far

Zimmboni: You know we could avoid this whole thing and just do something ourselves.

Zimmboni: People who wanted to.

Chowder: Cait thinks that's a good idea. We'd get to say what we talked about

Pins: You're dating the girl you dated in college. Not what people think about when they talk about queer hockey players.

Parse: NOT COOL DUDE

Parse: Zimms is married to his college boyfriend hes still bi. Or it doesnt count if its a woman?

Parse: Also shes a pro athlete with a degree shes not a girl

Marshall: @Pins the phrase you're looking for is sorry I was an asshole, ignore everything I say about your girlfriend, who is also way cooler than anyone I could get to sleep with me

Souse: is true. Current boyfriend is… eh. History professor.

Zimmboni: Those who do not remember their past are condemned to repeat their mistakes.

Parse: speaking of people who arent cool…

Marshall: Ouch, dude.

Parse: Tru tho

Chowder: Jack's awesome! And totally cool! He did Hazeapalooza with me and the other frogs even though he was a senior!

Parse: No clue what frogs have to do with it. Definitely not cool sorry 

Parse: Ask his husband

Pins: @Chowder Sorry, dude, I didn't mean that the way it sounded. I know there's a guy too.

Swoops: Missing the point

Chowder: @Pins Thanks for the apology.

*

"That man's an idiot," Cait says, snuggled under Chowder's right arm and watching the chat scroll by. 

"Don't let her have the phone," Derek mumbles from Chowder's other side, where he's half-napping after spending all day marking freshman English Lit essays. It's not that he doesn't like being an academic, but he's really looking forward to the day he has enough seniority to not have to teach the generalist classes. "She'll start another riot."

Cait reaches over Chowder to flick Derek's forehead. "That was once, and –"

"He deserved it, we know," Chowder says before Cait can get started – she's right, but they're having a quiet evening together for the first time in five weeks – and Derek hears the two of them kissing. "Pins is just clueless."

Derek tips his head up, eyes still closed, for his own kiss. Cait makes a little pleased noise, just like she always does when he and Chowder kiss, and it makes Derek and Chowder smile, just like it always does. It makes Derek feel safe, always has, in a way that he didn't for months after they left Samwell. Almost no-one, not even their closest friends, really gets their relationship, when they're not exactly a threesome, but Cait and Derek are far closer than metamours, and the three of them, when they're in the same place, sleep in the same bed, go to each others' events together.

Most of the time, none of them care. But sometimes, people like Ben Pinner, second line defense for the Aeros, say something that makes it really clear just how much people don't understand what they're doing together, or what it means.

"He's an idiot," Cait says again, reaching over to twine her fingers through Derek's. "And the others are right, he'd never get anyone even half as cool as either of us to sleep with him. Or as cool as you," she adds, kissing Chowder again.

"Thanks, babe." Chowder types something else into his phone, then tosses it onto the coffee table, by the sound of it. "Anyone want dinner yet?"

Derek keeps his eyes closed, unsure whether he's committing to being awake or just going to drift asleep. He ought to eat – eating and drinking on a regular schedule has only gotten more important since he started teaching – but he's really comfortable. 

"Yes, but D and I are having real food, not pasta."

"It's what Jack eats the day before games!" Chowder protests. "You can't argue with routine."

"Trust me, hon, I can, and I will."

"Hockey ritual," Derek murmurs.

"You do remember that I took gold in the last Olympics without any kind of ritual or routine or, whatever, lucky rabbit's foot?" Cait asks.

Derek forces one eye open to look at their awards' wall – Cait's gold medal for women's volleyball at the Olympics, the puck from Chowder's first shut-out with the Sharks, Derek's own PhD certificate, and next to those, a photo of the three of them, arms around each other, all three of them wearing Chowder's Sharks' jersey, at his Cup day last year. It looks like home, and on the days when Cait's away at training camps and Chowder's on a long roadie, Derek curls on the couch with their cat, Mouse, and stares at that wall until the weirdness of being alone in their house fades.

"You're both still coming tomorrow, though, right?" Chowder asks, sounding genuinely nervous. 

Derek and Cait lean in to kiss his cheeks at the same time, bumping noses with each other, all three of them laughing. "We promised, remember?" Cait says. 

"Because we've always gotten the wild card spot when the two of you are in the stands."

"We know," Derek says. "We're going to be there –"

"-Cheering ridiculously loud –"

"-While the other SOAPs pretend not to know us –"

"-And then we're going to bring you home and show you exactly how proud we are of you," Cait finishes. "No matter how it turns out."

"What she said," Derek agrees. He'll be thrilled for Chowder if the Sharks make the play-offs, but there's also a part of him that hopes, just a little, for a long summer. It's the first year that he hasn't had to teach summer session, and even Cait's managed to get a couple of consecutive weeks off in the summer. Derek won't care if they spend those two weeks at Sharks' games, but they agreed that, if the Sharks don't make it, they'll go away, lounge on the beach, drink ridiculous things with too many umbrellas, stay up late and sleep in. Even Dex agreed to come, after it became clear the Rangers weren't going to make the play-offs.

"Love you both," Chowder says.

*

Jax: https://www.theplayerstribune.com/en-us/articles/lucas-jackson-this-is-how-i-came-out

Chowder: omg [crying-emoji]

Chowder: in a good way!

Marshall: Dude!

Parse: Did anyone else know u were doing this?

Jax: Just Adi

Marshall: Dude!

Marshall: Just – dude!

Pins: My data's shit here, what's it say?!

Swoops: "Five years ago, I was the second NHL player to come out, in an article right here, This Is How I Come Out. I talked about growing up in hockey, knowing I wasn't like other boys, and being sure that would never be okay in the NHL. Even after Jack Zimmermann came out, I wasn't sure, but like I said five year ago, I couldn't keep my mouth shut any more."

Swoops: "Back then, I said it was because the secret had gotten to be too much and, shamefully, I thought that Zimmermann, Stanley Cup winner and son of a hockey legend, would take some of the attention off a second-line player with the Aces. All of that was true, but it was never the whole story."

Swoops: "Like most of us, I knew other players who were queer, from juniors, or on other teams in the League. One of them was my best friend, sat next to me on his couch as we watched that year's Stanley Cup Final. I remember the camera zooming in on Zimmermann, I remember needing a moment to figure out that yeah, I really was watching him kiss another man, I remember turning to my best friend and saying, oh my god. And I remember, clearer than anything, my friend saying, I can't ever do that."

Chowder: @Jax just showed Nursey – he's texting you right now. Everything he says is from me too.

Swoops: Parse is probably calling you too.

Swoops: "My friend was one of only two Indian players in the NHL right then. Tough enough being Indian in the NHL. Tough enough being queer in the NHL. Imagine being both, back then when we didn't really know how the NHL and the fans were going to react."

Swoops: "My best friend wanted to do what Zimmermann had just done – well, not quite, we were both single back then – and he already knew he couldn't. It was my responsibility, as his best friend, to do anything that I could to make it just a little bit safer, any way I could."

Swoops: "That's how I came out. That's _why_ I came out. And now, five years later, this is how my best friend in the world, my brother, is coming out."

Swoops: "Aditya Khatri, I will never be more proud of anyone than I am of you right now."

Jax: https://www.theplayerstribune.com/en-us/articles/aditya-khatri-this-is-how-i-come-out

Pins: Someone who's read it, is it going to make me cry as much as @Jax just did?

Parse: So much

Souse: ((((((

Zimmboni: Has anyone invited Khatri to the chat?

Jax: He doesn't want to join right now. He's reading over my shoulder.

*

Adi, because he's lived through more than one NHL drama, turned his phone to silent before the articles were posted, but it still starts flashing intensely at the same moment as Lucas posts the article link in his group chat. "Here we go."

They're up on the roof of the building where they've been renting an apartment together, even since the Canucks traded Lucas to the Capitals and the two of them were finally playing together again. They woke up to an unusually warm spring day, brought their coffee and phones up to chill on the loungers that live on the roof year round, both of them wearing Capitals' Hockey Is For Everyone t-shirts, ready for the selfie that Lucas insists they have to post and Adi is still trying to talk him out of. It's nice – they're only in their second season of playing together, and Adi still gets a little thrill at having his best friend nearby again.

"Hey." Lucas reaches over to slap Adi's arm. "Check your phone, Nursey texted you."

Adi unlocks his phone. "Do I even know who that is?"

"Chowder's guy? He came for drinks with them last time we were in San Jose."

Adi kind of remembers him – Lucas knows Chow pretty well from back when there still weren't that many out players, wanted to introduce the Caps' latest Russian signing to him, and insisted Adi go along to provide cover since Soks wasn't out – though he doesn't remember the guy's real name. What he does remember is a really attractive, dark-skinned guy who kissed Chow's cheek and leaned into Adi after a couple of shots, muttering about _white guys, dude,_ in response to something happening at the bar which Adi's forgotten the details of. 

A good half of his messages are from numbers his phone doesn't know, but Nursey has helpfully starting his with _hey, it's nursey_. Adi clicks into it.

Unknown number: hey, it's nursey. just read your article, great to see someone talking about race and sexuality in sport.

Unknown number: i know you don't know me so you don't know if this is for real, but i know how hard that is.

Unknown number: even out of hockey.

Adi remembers properly then – like Chow's girlfriend Caitlin, Nursey is someone Chow's known from college, and in this case played on his college team with. The two of them graduated college during Adi's third year in the NHL, got a lot of talk along with Nursey's D-partner. Adi remembers talking about it with Lucas, traded to the Canucks by then, whether either of their teams would have the space to take the D-pair, and then all of a sudden Poindexter had signed with the Rangers, Chow with the Sharks, and Nursey was going to UC Berkeley to do post-grad study.

Nursey: i know it's worse in the league.

Nursey: sorry, hope it's ok chris gave me your number.

Adi: its fine. thanx for texting. it means a lot.

Nursey: what you said in that article means a lot too. i know you know what it would have meant to me when i was a kid to read something like that.

Adi: I know what I wanted to read when I was a kid.

Adi: if you can come with chow next time they play us, ill buy you a drink. talk some.

Nursey: we're probably coming up with cait in a few weeks. i'll text you.

Adi: plz. lucas is great but… slightly clueless white guys, you know?

Nursey: [smiling-emoji] yeah

Adi: gotta go, lucas has 5 million responses to show me. 

Adi: thanx for texting.

Adi: if its not weird – i wouldve loved to play against you.

Nursey: me too

*

Khatri: not that I'm complaining, but why did your bf send me pie?

Jack: haha.

Jack: It's how he shows love and support.

Jack: He's my husband though.

Khatri: shit, sorry. i knew that.

Jack: Don't worry. You've had a busy week.

Khatri: under-statement! apparently being queer and indian in the nhl is really interesting right now.

Khatri: tell your husband thanx. good guess on flavor – key lime's my fav

Jack: He asked Parse to ask Jax.

Khatri: of course he did. aces phone tree wins again.

Jack: haha. Bitty says enjoy it.

Khatri: we will!

Leaning back from the stove to read Jack's phone, Bitty laughs. "He's sweet."

"Yeah." Jack puts his phone away and wraps one leg around Bitty's waist to draw him closer. It gets him a whack on the knee with a wooden spoon – clean, thankfully – but Bitty lets himself be pulled in closer, so he can't be too upset. After all this time, Jack knows when it's safe to interrupt jam-making for making out. He wraps both legs round Bitty and leans down from his perch on the kitchen counter for a kiss, and then another. Bitty tastes of sugar and strawberries. 

"Him and his room-mate," Bitty says, cuddling into Jack's arms. 

"Jax – Lucas Jackson, right-wing for the Caps."

"I know," Bitty says, a bit affronted. "He wrote me the nicest email after he came out."

Bitty's only a couple of years older than Jax but, although they're not close at all, he seems to have adopted Jax as an honorary frog. Jack hasn't figured out how to tell Jax that yet.

"Sorry. What about them?"

"Are they room-mates? Or _room-mates_?"

"What's the difference?" Jack asks, tucking his smile into the top of Bitty's head. Bitty, not fooled at all, elbows Jack as much as he can when they're so close together. "I know Jax tried really hard to get traded to the Caps or an east coast team after the Aces traded him."

"That's quite romantic," Bitty says. Jack doesn't know how, but he can feel that Bitty's smiling at that.

"They played together in the USHL," Jack points out. "I think they might just be friends."

Bitty shrugs. "That's nice too," he says. He sounds comfortable, almost sleepy, his arms looped around Jack's waist, one hand tucked under Jack's shirt. If Jack concentrates, he can feel Bitty's wedding ring against his skin. It makes him smile, does every time he sees either of their rings, nearly a year later. "I'm glad they've got each other."

Jack kisses the top of Bitty's head. "I'm glad we've got each other," he says.

*

The Kiss: Five Years On  
Mary-Beth O'Hanahan

There's not, I don't think, a hockey fan in the world who doesn't know what you mean when you talk about The Kiss. The day that Jack Zimmermann, having just won the Stanley Cup in his freshman NHL year, kissed then-boyfriend now-husband Eric Bittle at center ice and became the first out player in NHL history.

In the five years since, men's hockey has visibly changed. We've seen the first NHL wedding and the first intra-team romance (and the spectacularly public implosion thereof). We've seen a Calder Cup winning team with an entirely queer first line, openly gay players go in the first round, and an openly queer Latino player go first overall. We've watched hockey's gay uncles come out while providing color commentary for a Canucks/Capitals game, in the most adorable argument ever over which anniversary they're really celebrating this year.

Of course it's not all perfect: hockey's part of society, and society is still far from perfect. 

But it's so different from five years ago – so different from how we could even have imagined things being five years ago. And no-one knows that better than the players themselves.

In the run-up to the anniversary of The Kiss, we talked to players – gay, straight, bi, undisclosed – about the last five years…


End file.
